


you can have manhattan

by lettersfromnowhere



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Experimental Style, F/M, High School Reunion, The Regret Fic(tm)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-22
Updated: 2020-08-22
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:14:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26041768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lettersfromnowhere/pseuds/lettersfromnowhere
Summary: Ten years later, Katara and Zuko are no better at saying what they mean than they were as eighteen-year-olds with the world laid out at their feet.Ten years later, high school is a distant memory.Ten years later, Katara and Zuko meet again.Ten years later, Katara and Zuko realize that everything and nothing has changed.
Relationships: Aang/Katara (Avatar), Katara/Zuko (Avatar), Mai/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 26
Kudos: 70





	you can have manhattan

**Author's Note:**

> So, I was listening to "Manhattan" by Sara Barielles (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wKU-jaus6w) on loop earlier, and this just...came to me. And THEN I decided to play with the dialogue and spice up this little one shot into an exploration of what we say vs. what we mean. So, just so you know what to expect: 
> 
> "If a line is in quotes, it's actually said." 
> 
> _lines below that in italics are what they meant._
> 
> Good luck, guys.

**5:38 P.M.**

Katara pushed a stray curl that the wind had blown from her cheek, lifting her hat to press it behind her ear. It was easy to hone in on the mundanity of the movements and the crisp chill and the crunch of leaves painted with the season beneath the heels of her boots. It was easy to let her lips slip into a wistful smile, the kind that caught the eyes of passing strangers with the beauty of its simple innocence, and pretend that the glory of a Manhattan autumn was all that occupied her thoughts. 

It was so _easy_ to be a beautiful stranger, and so safe. Perhaps there'd been one too many people eager to diagnose a heartbreak back in the Ohio town she called home now, but no one ever peered into the hearts of strangers here. No one could be bothered. 

Katara loved that about New York: when she needed to hide, it graciously allowed her. 

(She tucked herself under her husband's arm against the chill and let him wrap his scarf around her, its fabric catching her visible breaths before they could escape into the night air. 

Face beneath this scarf, body tucked into these arms, she was invisible in every way.) 

* * *

**5:42 P.M.**

Zuko pulled his coat tighter around his shoulders against the chill. He'd forgotten what autumn felt like here, how the sharp chill of the Northeastern evening cut through his clothes; the now-familiar fog off the San Francisco Bay never chilled him like this. That cold seeped into his bones; _this_ cold cut straight to the heart. 

Just like this city did. Just like the woman who'd claimed it. 

"Are you cold?" he asked his wife beside him, for thoughts of cutting cold and punctured hearts were too dangerous to indulge, and she shook her head, glossy locks swishing around her red earmuffs in the cold, dry air. They were the only bit of color on her entire body: black tights, black skirt and white blouse beneath black peacoat, black hair. She was impossibly stylish, impossibly polished - she wore every bit of the elegance no one would think to ask of an ambitious Silicon Valley upstart with impossible ease. 

And she wore her indifference just as effortlessly as she wore name brands. 

"No," she said flatly, taking Zuko's arm in hers as if it would convey some depth of feeling she wasn't expressing. 

He left it at that and tried to look up. 

* * *

**6:22 P.M.**

Katara wasn't paying attention as she pushed through the glass doors of the building she'd called home for four long-ago years, nor as the woman who'd organized the event excitedly jabbered about "a lifetime of memories" and "lasting bonds" and other things that fell totally flat on Katara's jaded ears. 

Once, _she'd_ have been the one giving that speech. Not today, though. 

(Katara wasn't that girl anymore.) 

"That was nice," her husband told her, leaning in and letting his warm breath - _warm,_ like everything about him - ghost her ear. No chill shot up her spine at the proximity, no wings fluttered in her stomach, but she smiled anyways, unsure why.

"Mm-hm," she said noncommittally, taking her purse from the chair and standing. 

_I wasn't listening._

"Are you excited to see your old classmates?" 

"They were your classmates, too," she said with lightness she didn't feel. 

_No. Too many bad memories._

"Not my graduating class, though." On a whim, he took her hand and kissed it with a flourish; if he'd been expecting Katara to giggle or blush prettily and return the favor with a kiss to his temple (and, in truth, a few months ago,she would've done just that), he was going to be let down. She smiled indulgently and let him take her arm, claws of unhappiness tearing at the walls of her stomach. 

The girl she'd been last time she walked these halls had been _happy_ and she'd been kind and softhearted and full of dreams. She'd been in love: in love with life and hope and her cozy little group of forever friends. She'd been in love with the future, in all its glorious possibility - with the idea that she could _be_ something, _change_ things. She'd been in love with an idea, an imagined life that had never existed beyond the pages of her mind's storybook, and she'd been in love with a golden-eyed stranger, once. 

Now all she could count as loved were two blue-eyed, chubby-cheeked babies and memories of a time when life was color and texture and light against canvas and not paint-by-numbers.

* * *

**6:28 P.M.**

"Hey, could you get me one of those croissants? Thanks." 

"Sure," Zuko sighed, shoving his hands in his pockets. He didn't mind, really, even though she sat typing frantically on her phone's tiny keyboard while he risked an awkward run-in with a classmate to get her the pastry she'd requested. 

But he hated how _exposed_ he felt when he approached the line of old classmates snaking around the table, waiting their turns to pluck baked goods from a platter piled high with elegant, flaky pastries that had probably taken half of the event's budget to supply. He kept his head down. _Better to stay unseen._

He'd just risked a glance up to make sure the croissant he was choosing wasn't smashed or falling apart when blue eyes locked on his.

* * *

**6:30 P.M.**

Katara's breath caught in her throat. _Say something,_ all that was logical in her insisted, but she stayed frozen, her hand hovering over a chocolate-dipped palmier. Though Zuko's eyes darted back down to the croissant he was holding the moment he recognized her, she knew he'd seen her. It would be awkward not to say anything. 

"Zuko?" she asks, as if there's any doubt. 

_The question's just a formality. I would know your eyes anywhere._

He finally glances back up. "Katara." 

_I'd hoped I wouldn't have to talk to you._

"It's been a while!" she pasted on the brightest smile she could fake. 

_You are the one person I'd hoped I wouldn't run into._

"Uh, yeah. So...what are you up to?"

_Have you been happier than I have?_

"Oh, you know, the usual. Finished law school, got married, moved to Ohio, had two kids..."

_I hate nearly everything about the person I've become since you last saw me._

"Wow. You've had a great ten years."

_There's no more sparkle in your eyes. Why?_

"It's been...something." She flashed him another megawatt smile that didn't reach her eyes. "What about you?"

_Tell me, Zuko. Tell me one of us ended up happy._

"Nothing much, just working on my pHD," he told her. 

_I'm so different now, Katara._

"Ooh, in what?" a little light returned to her eyes at that. "And where? I saw you were here with someone - tell me about her!"

_It's been so long, and everything's changed, but it hurts me so much to even say that._

"Oh, that's Mai." He smiled tightly. "We met back at Stanford, second year of grad school. I'm still there - also, international studies, to answer your question - and she's in software development with a firm in Palo Alto." 

_I love her, but I hate talking about this with you._

"Wow, fancy." Katara tried to look chipper but only sounded sarcastic - jealous, almost. "I'm happy for you."

_She's so glamorous. I know, I know, I'm twenty-eight and that's a ridiculous thing to think, but she's stunning, and impressive._ _She's not a small-town lawyer with no prospects, career or otherwise, who married for stability and thought she was thinking of the future._

_She's what you deserve._

"Thanks, Katara."

_Do you want to know the truth, Katara? I fell for her because she was the only person I'd found who could stop me from thinking about you._

"Um. I guess I should get back to Aang," she said, managing a stiff half-chuckle. "You know how he is." 

_He was the safe choice. Maybe that's why I always went back to him._

"Goodbye, Katara." 

_You're like a stranger now._

"Goodbye, Zuko." Her lip curled upwards ever-so-slightly at the feeling of his name on her lips for the first time in so many years. 

_You and I were always just a beautiful dream._

"Katara, wait."

_I'm not ready to let go._

She turned back to him. "Yeah?" 

"Are you happy?" 

She offered a curt nod. "I am," she said. 

_Is this happiness - a job and kids I love, a husband who makes me feel safe even when he can't make my heart flutter, comfort and stability and stasis?_ _Then maybe I am._

"I'm glad."

_I know you aren't, Katara. You don't have to tell yourself that you are._

"And you?" she inclined her chin, asking for a response. 

_I know you know I'm trying to convince myself._

"Of course." 

_Maybe, from a certain point of view._

"Good." 

_I'm glad you found something better, even if my memories are more beautiful than the future was ever going to be._

"Goodbye, Zuko." 

She left before she could think too much and bit her lip so the tears wouldn't fall. 

* * *

**2:20 A.M.**

Zuko tried to tell himself that he'd never been able to sleep in hotel beds, but he couldn't even convince himself that that was why he was still awake.

His mind wouldn't let him sleep, not when long-buried memories of overapplied rose perfume and soft, shy smiles had barged into his mind and taken up space there.

Homecoming night, dancing beneath dim lights in a sweaty gym, stumbling half-drunk on the late hour and on each other, curls falling from her updo too-big sneakers on her feet - he walked down the streets in his socks, carrying the heels she hadn't wanted to wear anymore, and he'd never been happier.

Catching each others' eyes across the room during other students' presentations, trading private smirks at jokes no one else was privy to, conveyed in only a look. 

That late-October ferry ride, leaning against the railing and into her as he cupped her cheek and tried to kiss her only to get a mouthful of her hair that the wind had whipped into her face at the worst possible moment. Bursting out laughing with the absurdity of it all, Katara's smile as she'd tied her hair back before she leaned in and kissed him until he forgot that it had ever been anything but the natural order of the universe - them, kissing. 

(She was his first.) 

Graduation, sweeping her into his arms and spinning her until she shrieked with delight and held him, burying her hands and face in the fabric of his gown. 

Going away, growing apart. Tearful phone calls, leaving without a single real goodbye. 

He'd found out about her wedding on her brother's Instagram page. 

(She'd never even heard about his.) 

He hadn't known she had kids. 

(She hadn't know he was even _interested_ in international studies.) 

He didn't know she was living in Ohio. 

(She wondered if he liked it out in California.) 

_How did I let her become a stranger?_

* * *

**1:26 A.M.**

"Are you all right, sweetie?" Aang propped himself up on his elbow to get a better look at Katara, who'd been unusually restless all night. 

"I'm okay. Go back to sleep," she said, assuaging him with as brief a kiss as she could manage. "You have to be up early." 

"Don't remind me," he sighed, slinging one of his arms across her waist to pull her in, and she had to admit that, if nothing else, the warmth of his closeness was comforting. He didn't understand a lot of things about Katara but her need to be held close, to feel safe, was one he'd always been able to pick up on. "I wish I could stay here with you."

"You have a flight to catch. You're going to be a zombie tomorrow morning if you don't go to sleep."

He said nothing to that, for which Katara was grateful; she couldn't have taken it if he'd tried to pry. She was too restless, too causelessly nervous. 

And she did not have the heart to tell him that she was thinking of a beautiful stranger. 


End file.
